SSAB turns down billions in US funding
Luleå Steel company SSAB has planned a new fossil-free steel plant in the US and applied for $500 million in federal funding. Now the company has quietly withdrawn from the negotiations.
Last year, SSAB announced that the US Department of Energy had selected the company as a candidate to receive federal support of USD 500 million, as part of the Biden administration’s programme for industrial transition, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The aid would go towards building a fossil-free steel manufacturing plant in Perry County, Mississippi, where the Hybrit technology developed in Luleå would be used.
The US newspaper Canary Media now reports that SSAB has quietly pulled out of the project. The company has not provided information on why the subsidy negotiations were cancelled or what is happening with the plans in Perry County. SSAB confirms the information to the Swedish business newspaper Dagens Industri, but does not comment on why it has withdrawn its application.
“It is true that SSAB has withdrawn our application and is no longer negotiating with the US Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations regarding this support. We continue to have a good dialogue and exchange of experience with the US energy authority,” the company’s press officer Anna Molin told Dagens Industri.
Uncertainty has been created around green initiatives ahead of Donald Trump taking office as the new US president. Donald Trump has previously said that unused money allocated through Joe Biden’s major climate initiative will be cancelled.
Lennart Håkansson, North Sweden Business
